The above quote is from a testimonial given to us by Brande R. Plotnick, Manager of Branding and Product Marketing for Siemens Hearing Instruments. Siemens has complex products in an increasingly crowded market. Siemens knows that during these challenging times, sellers must be trained on the incremental value that each level of product provides less they be driven to the lowest price solution by cost conscious customers. To see the complete testimonial click here.

To drive revenue during challenging times:

• Differentiate yourself from the competition with a compelling and relavent value proposition.
• Upsell by quantifying the incremental value of options or higher level offerings.
• Create a sense of urgency by exposing the cost of postponing a deal.
• Protect price by discussing and quantifying value throughout the entire sales process.

Sharpen your approach by marketing the benefits of your offering that currently only your customers know about. Stop marketing benefits that aren't real or that only serve to establish "me too" status relative to the competition.

To learn more about how The Cistek Group helped Siemens and to determine if we might be able to help you "shine in today's market", contact us.

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Why Value Pricing Initiatives Fail

How This Recession Has Changed The Nature of Order Losses

The oil spill disaster in the gulf has once again reminded me of how one's life can be turned upside down in an instant. It triggers a flood of concerns - about the people whose lives were lost, those that will be affected directly or indirectly by the disaster, the environment, and even BP employees and workers in general.

It also has reminded me to once again address with my clients the consideration of "risk" in their value propositions. Many times, offerings can reduce risk but because of the inherent uncertainty clients are hesitant to quantify it. They don't consider it a "hard" benefit. The reality is that stuff happens and to the extent that your solution reduces the probability that bad stuff will happen or reduces the impact when it does, you should identify and quantify the resulting benefit. On the other hand, if a company had approached BP a year ago with a technology to prevent deep water blow-outs with the claim they it would reduce the probability that BP would spend 20+ billion in disaster recovery - would they have listened?